The Minister and the Boy: A Handbook for Churchmen Engaged in Boys' Work

by Allan Hoben

Those who know the boy best can hardly be persuaded that the Sunday school can be made to satisfy his intense demand for action. Yet action is an important factor in religious education. Commendable efforts are being made to introduce more of handicraft and artistic expression into the work of the Sunday-school class; but from the boy's point of view, the making of maps, illuminated texts, and temple models does not fully meet his desire for doing. The character of the Sunday school, its place of meeting, and the proper observance of the day preclude the more noisy, varied, and spontaneous activities which may be made to carry moral and religious value.

Another agency is needed in the church that can be more venturesome and free than the Sunday school, an agency that can act on the parallel of the boy's natural interests and adapt its methods to his unfolding life in terms of action. The Sunday school can stick to its task of elucidating the history and theory of religion; but the boys' club is a better place for securing the expression of religious principles and so confirming them in character. When the Sunday school shall have reached its highest point of efficiency it will still have failed to cover the most vital element in the moral and religious training of the boy simply because it will still be a Sunday school and, presumably, a Bible school. That is, it will have not only the benefits but also the limitations of the sacred day and of the book method of instruction. The boy needs something more than "a society for sitting still."

But some will say, "Why take the boy out of the home at all? The good home, the public school, and the established agencies of religion are enough. A club is not needed." It might be replied that all boys do not have good homes and that relatively few attend church or Sunday school; but if that were not the case the desirability of the boys' club would still be apparent. The fact is that the boy gets out of the home anyway and seeks his group. There is a process of socialization and self-discovery for which the best home-circle cannot provide; and the club only recognizes and uses this "gang" instinct. It capitalizes for good the normal social desires of the boy. In so doing it does not necessarily conflict with a single good element in the home, but is rather the first formal token of citizenship and the guarantor of proper deportment in the midst of one's peers.

In a well-directed club the consensus of opinion will usually be more effective in securing good conduct than the father's neglected or fitful discipline or the mother's endless forbearance. The boy has profound respect for the judgment of his equals; and wherever the leader can make the group ideals right he can be practically assured of the conformity of all who come within the group influence. "The way we do here," "the thing we stand for," constitutes a moral leverage that removes mountains. The boy that has been too much sheltered needs it, the boy that has been neglected and is whimsical or non-social needs it, the only son often needs it, and the boy who is distinguished by misconduct in the Sunday-school class needs it.

The club is never justified, then, in offending against the home. Keeping young boys out late at night, interfering with home duties or with the implicit confidence between a boy and his parents, or dragging him off into some sectarian camp away from his family is not to be tolerated. This is never necessary, and the wise leader can always co-operate harmoniously with the home if he takes thought so to do.

But the leader who fails to recognize the sanctity and priority of the home, who permits his interest in boys to be blind to home conditions and influence, or who does not approach the home problems as a reverent and intelligent helper is very far from an ideal workman. One great advantage of the small club in the church consists in this personalized and teachable interest which gets in close by the side of perplexed, ignorant, weak, or neglectful parents and seeks to raise the home as an institution so that all its members, including the boy, may be richly benefited. To be a pastor rather than a mere herdsman of boys one must know their fold. It is well enough to be proud of the boys' club but it is good "boys' work" to develop home industry and to encourage habits of thrift and of systematic work that shall bless and please the home circle. The boy may far better work too hard for the communal welfare of the home than to grow up an idle pleasure-seeking parasite.

It is taken for granted that the wise pastor will think twice before organizing a boys' club. It were better for him to leave the whole enterprise in the innocent realm of his castles in Spain than to add another failure to the many that have been made in this attractive and difficult field. Enthusiasm is essential, but taken alone it is an embarrassing qualification. Therefore he should make a careful inventory of his available assets. If he contemplates personal leadership he would do well to list his own qualifications. In any event he will need to be familiar with the boy-life of his community, with all that endangers it and with all that is being done to safeguard and develop it in accord with Christian ideals. If the boys of his parish are already adequately cared for he will not feel called upon to bring coals to Newcastle.

His personal inventory must needs take into account his tastes and ability. These will be determined frequently by the mere matter of age; for undoubtedly the earlier years of one's ministry lie a little nearer to the interests of boyhood and at this time the knack of the athletic training received in school or college has not been wholly lost. The leader may recover or increase his ability in games by taking a course at the Y.M.C.A.

If he finds within himself a deep love for boys that gets pleasure rather than irritation from their obstreperous companionship, if he is endowed with kindness that is as firm as adamant in resisting every unfair advantage--which some will surely seek to take--if he is noise-proof and furnished with an ample fund of humor that is scrupulously clean and moderately dignified, if he possesses a quiet, positive manner that becomes more quiet and positive in intense and stormy situations, if he is withal teachable, alert, resourceful, and an embodiment of the "square-deal" principle, and if he is prepared to set aside everything that might interfere with the religious observance of every single appointment with his boys--then he may consider himself eligible for the attempt.

But how will he go about it? Shall he print posters of a great mass-meeting to organize a boys' club? Shall he besiege his church for expensive equipment, perhaps for a new building? Shall he ask for an appropriation for work which most of the people have not seen, and of whose value they cannot judge except from his enthusiastic prophecies? Let us hope not. To succeed in such requests might be to die like Samson; while to fail in them would be a testimony to the sanity of his responsible parishioners.